Punjab Director General of Police (DGP) Gaurav Yadav on Tuesday directed all the Commissioners of Police, Senior Superintendents of Police (SSPs) of the state to lay effective inter-state or inter-district nakas to keep vigil on the movement of anti-social elements, drug smugglers, and bootleggers, and mobilize maximum force for area domination and confidence-building measures.
DGP Yadav, chairing a virtual state-level meeting with senior police officers, Range ADGs, IGs, DIGs, CPs, SSPs, all gazetted officers posted in districts, and all SHOs in the State, reviewed the preventive measures ahead of elections and apprise them about the Election Commission of India (ECI) guidelines.
Informing the officers that there is a complete ban on the issuance of new arms licenses, the DGP directed the CPs and SSPs to ensure the deposition of weapons in compliance with the ECI norms. He also asked CPs and SSPs to frequently carry out checking at gun houses to review the security arrangements and ensure that foolproof arrangements have been made by the gun house owner for safe storage of firearms.
DGP directed the officers to carry out mapping of vulnerable areas to identify the sensitive and hyper-sensitive areas so that extra force could be deployed to avoid any untoward situation ahead of the General Elections. He also directed all the officers to make special efforts to nab accused persons involved in heinous crimes and expedite the investigation and prosecution of cases of election-related offences.
The state police chief ordered officers to intensify the checking of vehicles, especially commercial vehicles, entering and exiting the state to check the influx of narcotics and illicit liquor. There should be no let up in the ongoing campaign against drug traffickers, criminals and gangsters, he made it clear.
DGP Yadav said that a special campaign has already been launched to arrest Proclaimed Offenders (POs) and parole jumpers and for execution of non-bailable warrants (NBWs). “Since the launch of this campaign from January 1, 2024, the Police teams till now have arrested as many as 2,890 POs, while preventive action has been taken against 2,456 people under sections 107/151 of the CrPC. Similarly, out of 2110 non-bailable warrants, 1175 have been executed successfully,” he added.
